


Starburst

by FlyingButtress



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abuse of the Statute of Secrecy, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Meddling, Post-Canon, Serious with crack-undertones, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 13:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21428809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingButtress/pseuds/FlyingButtress
Summary: Harry Potter was destined for great things, not happiness. When he gets his mark, he thinks maybe things will be different. Until he meets the person whose words he bears and things don't go the way he expected. Despite everything he's done for humanity, Harry's happy ending is still out of his reach. He believes the only thing fate has in store for him is to settle with contentment.A few other people in Harry's life happen to disagree with that idea.Soulmark fic. Marks are randomly placed on the body, first words the person says to their soulmate are written in their handwriting.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Harry Potter, Thorin Oakenshield/John Watson
Comments: 27
Kudos: 606
Collections: Best Harry Potter Crossovers, Harry Potter Fanfic Must Reads





	Starburst

**Author's Note:**

> Harry/Sherlock Soulmark fic at the request of a friend. She's also a Bilbo/Thorin fan, so I threw a little of that in, too. There are probably rules soulmarks in this world follow? But it's mainly a fic about vulnerability and fate. And peer pressure. And a lot more glowing than should be normal, even in this world.
> 
> Warning: I am "Not British" American and have never been to Muggle London. I use British and American phrases randomly and generally without care.

Early Winter, 1999

It appeared on New Year’s Eve, the day before the new millennium.

The weather outside was icy and dangerous, winds howling and forcing sleepy trees to bend and twist in unnatural ways, roads crusted with ice and leftover snow from the Christmas weather. Inside was warm and cozy, comfortable for the group of friends that had gathered to celebrate the coming of a new era together.

They were celebrating in Neville’s muggle-London flat, standing around the fire with flutes of champagne and fire whiskey and orange juice. It was close to midnight, about 40 minutes before the ball was supposed to drop. The muggle television was tuned to the proper channel, but the volume was muted so they could enjoy each other’s company.

Without giving any excuses, Harry politely extracted himself from conversation with Hermione and Ginny, giving Draco a nod as he passed the Slytherin on the way to the bathroom.

Harry was only 20. On average, the marks didn’t appear until after the age of 21 or 22, but it wasn’t exactly unusual for it to be earlier or later. He set his champagne flute down on the marble sink after shutting the bathroom door behind him.

He took a moment to look at himself in the mirror, noticing the flush on his cheeks standing out against his pale skin. Harry didn’t know if it was the blush, the lighting in the bathroom or the alcohol that made his eyes stand out greener than he’d ever seen them in a while, but alone in the bathroom he was able to lean in and admire them narcissistically for a moment. His hair was a bit messier than normal, probably from when George had ruffled his head in greeting and he’d never had a chance to fix it since then.

Now, he did what he could for his appearance, running a hand through his hair and patting wild strands into some semblance of order, before pulling on his tweed jacket to straighten out the wrinkles and taking a deep, steadying breath. He closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out the sight of himself, the soft ocean smells of the potpourri on the back of the toilet, and the slight roar of a roomful of drunken friends in a time of celebration on the other side of the door. He settled his mind on a calming place, the white train platform, slowing his quickly beating heart with effort.

Bracing himself, Harry shook out his limbs. He took another sip from his champagne, letting the texture sit on his tongue for a moment too long to distract from nervousness. Then he lifted up his shirt, pulled the waist of his dark jeans down just enough to find the spot that was burning for his attention—

_Good afternoon_, it read in elegant script across his hipbone, itching under his skin. Harry blinked down at it. It was upside down for him, the angle strange and awkward to look at. The dark words stood out starkly against his hip, and when he shifted and looked in the mirror, trying to see it better, the words didn’t change or waver, but remained solid and fresh and tender.

He let light fingers glance over them, unsettled on whether to be happy that the words were simple or disappointed. Looking back up at himself in the mirror, he saw the flush was still there, but the glow of his eyes was gone. At that angle, he could see the scar through the hair on his forehead, dull and fading, but still there.

Instead of touching that, he looked back down at his mark and let his fingers hover over it for another heartbeat or two.

His time was interrupted with sharp banging on the bathroom door. “Oi, Harry,” Ron’s voice called out, the fire whiskey as loud in his voice as his raised volume. “My wife needs in there.”

Dropping his shirt and fixing his clothes, Harry ruffled his fringe for a second before grabbing his flute. “Alright, Ron, bathroom’s all yours,” Harry said, yanking the door open and barely making it through the door before Ron, giggling in his inebriated state, barreled his way through the door and slammed it in Harry’s face.

Harry just rolled his eyes and went back out to the party, sidling in next to Luna, George and Neville to join in on their conversation about thestrals and radishes and new year’s resolutions.

o0o0o

Apart from a drifty, wispy expectation that floated along in the back of his mind wherever he went, nothing came of the mark. The words were so generic, so polite that there was nothing really to anticipate except the eventual burning of the mark itself.

Days passed, then weeks, and the cold weather endured. His ears perked up when he heard the words “Good afternoon,” but it was never the right person, just coincidence. It became tedious, all the searching and the rising and falling of hope, but Harry stayed good-natured and tight-lipped about it.

In the original few days of the mark appearing, he’d thought about telling his friends, but he hadn’t. It started off as a reluctance because he knew they’d make a big deal about it, about how it came early and how it came on New Year’s Eve and how it appeared on his hip of all places. But then his reluctance turned into a lazy guilt, where he felt he hadn’t told them when it had first appeared, so if he told them now, they’d be upset he waited so long, and with each passing day the guilt grew and the lie-of-omission sunk further inside him. So, he told no one.

Overall, it made his life just slightly less hectic, what with his busy schedule of gardening and cooking and reading and all. He wouldn’t want Hermione and Ginny and the other high-strung people in his life to latch onto the news of a mark and start parading people around his property in the hopes they could bring about the fated meeting that much sooner.

It wasn’t that Harry didn’t want to meet the person on the other side of the mark, waiting to hear those words spoken from lips that would no doubt be perfectly sculpted, from a face that would be no stranger to Harry than his own. Clearly, if anything, Harry _needed_ this person in his life. They were destined by fate, by the natural magic that orchestrated all their lives.

Plus, Harry was truly tired of being alone. He had Teddy to keep him company sometimes, and George came by quite often on Tuesday evenings to commiserate in peaceful quiet over a drink, but he knew there was a person-shaped hole in his heart just waiting to be filled. They just had to meet.

* * *

Late Winter, 2000

It wasn’t often that Harry had a reason to be in muggle London anymore. Really, the only reason he did find himself there was to visit Neville or have a quiet coffee alone. He liked to people-watch the muggles. They lived in an entirely separate world than wizards, yet their lives were no less complicated, no less worthy of existing. They could still feel anguish and joy, peace and stress, happiness and loneliness, just as any wizard or witch could.

Sometimes, Harry liked to remind himself why Voldemort could never have won, even if Harry hadn’t lived.

On one such excursion for a coffee in muggle London, Harry sat at the window of his favorite shop, watching the people kick up blackened slush along the sidewalks as they hurried by, huddled under miles of coats and scarves and hats. His own boots had puddles under them on the linoleum floor under his table, but the shop was comfortable and he’d left his coat and scarf hanging on the peg near his table.

He was sitting close enough to the large glass window that his breath was fogging it up just a little, tempting him to draw a happy face in it but he was just able to resist, reminding himself he wasn’t a child.

A bright red flash of color distracted him from his thoughts. Across the street from the coffee shop, he saw a tall, pale man with unwashed dark hair emerge from a side street, face half-covered by a vibrantly red scarf. Harry watched as the man paced up and down the street for several minutes, clearly agitated or anxious, waiting for someone or something. The man checked a watch on his wrist every few seconds, impatient.

Finally, another man, equally unwashed and suspect, slunk up to the man in the scarf. They stood close, the ghosts of their breaths mingling as they spoke quietly and urgently. To Harry’s surprise, there was a quick exchange, a brief glide of hands that was too smooth for anyone not already observing to see, and then the two men parted as if nothing happened.

For a moment, Harry sat in his cozy coffee shop, stunned at having just witnessed such a shady ordeal, but he reminded himself quickly he was in London in 2000. This wasn’t a decent locale like Surrey, although he’d thought the business district the coffee shop was in to be somewhat reputable and hip.

Obviously not, since people had shady dealings like this out in the open. Of course, there was also the lack of a notoriously Dark location like Knockturn Alley, but London still had less-desirable places to interact.

Harry finished his coffee and decided he’d seen enough people to last him the day. He took a moment to gather his things, pull on his coat and scarf, then went to get a coffee-to-go and a Danish pastry for Teddy because he knew the boy loved them.

As he stepped outside into the brisk, mid-morning winter chill, Harry nearly collided with someone. He just barely managed to save his coffee and pastry bag from tumbling into said stranger due to his honed Quidditch reflexes, apologies ingrained since childhood tumbling from his lips as clumsy as he otherwise wasn’t.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” he was saying, turning to look at the stranger. To Harry’s surprise and slight mortification, he recognized the man in the red scarf. Up close, he was hiding sharp cheekbones and green, blood-shot eyes, his clothes were a bit ratty and unkempt, body shaking in the cold. He looked haunted and hauntingly familiar, though Harry didn’t know why.

He was also—to Harry’s unbidden irritation—disturbingly tall, towering over Harry, nearly invading his personal space based on height alone.

The man’s eyes focused on Harry, looking down at him with alarm and intrigue. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry thought he saw something glowing beneath the man’s red scarf, but didn’t know what to make of it. Instead of apologizing or accepting Harry’s apologies, the man just stared down at Harry, like he was trying to understand a difficult riddle or translate Harry’s words from another language. He pulled a hand out of his pocket, held a finger up between them like a conductor might suggest a pause in the music, shook his head, stuffed his hand back in his pocket and murmured a gruff, “Good afternoon,” as he hurried along on his way.

For a moment, Harry watched the man scurry down the sidewalk, using long strides through the slush on the path, dodging effortlessly around slower pedestrians.

It wasn’t until the man was turning a corner nearly a block away that Harry realized the burning, itching sensation on his hip wasn’t a sudden onset of dry skin crackling in the cold, but rather his mark reacting to the man in the red scarf himself.

With a yelp, Harry accidentally threw his coffee down on the ground and bolted after the man, both at once excited and terrified as he gasped cold breaths of air, not nearly as graceful at dodging through the people as the other had been. He was throwing out apologies left and right, wondering why the streets were suddenly so much busier now than they’d been just a few minutes before.

By the time he made it to the corner, there was absolutely no sight of the man to be seen through the crowds. Harry couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the bright color of his scarf, or the crown of dark curls towering above the lowly pedestrians around.

Harry reached into his pocket and clutched at his wand, but out here in a muggle city, he knew better than to draw it or use it. He stood at the corner for a few minutes, looking around, not really even hoping to spot the man again, but rather letting it sink in that he’d just met his soulmate.

Inside his chest, Harry could barely take a real breath with the amount his heart was fluttering. He glanced around at the muggles surrounding him, but other than a few glares and curious looks thrown his way for standing in their path, no one seemed to be having a crisis like him. That was usually how it was, anyway. No one’s problems were as big as your own.

o0o0o

Harry debated actually telling someone, anyone, but he still didn’t. On top of having not told anyone at all still, now he felt ashamed he’d let his soulmate disappear without a trace. He’d be too _embarrassed_ to tell anyone.

Having finally encountered the person on the other side of his mark, Harry found himself restless. Some innate part of him buzzed and twitched and hummed, trying to convince him to get back out there and _look_, but the logical part of him told that other part to shut up and go away. Not that Harry didn’t want to actually find his soulmate, he just knew walking around in the city probably wouldn’t be nearly as productive as the rest of him was trying to convince him it would be.

Instead of searching around in a panicked frenzy, Harry decided to do a little research. Grimmauld Place had a few decent tomes on soul marks, soul-searching, and soul mates. He pulled what he could find and spent a good few days reading through them. There was a lot of interesting information in them, not the least of which was the recurring emphasis on fate and the magnetism between the two fated.

Three days after their first encounter, Harry returned to the coffee shop and ordered his usual. He tried not to eagerly search his surroundings for a bright red scarf, but instead attempted to be aloof and distant. He sat in his usual spot and people-watched like any other visit.

Maybe it was the fact that he read tomes from the Black library, but he saw no hide nor hair of his soulmate that first day. Nor did he see any sign of him the second or the third day. Harry was beginning to wonder about his aspirations as he came back a fourth, fifth, and sixth day with no results.

He felt a rift grow between him and his soulmate. It got deeper and deeper the longer he waited there, scanning the crowds with his eyes, no stirring from his mark. He knew he couldn’t keep returning to the coffee shop every day. He was neglecting his home, his friends, and his godson, the last of which didn’t understand what was taking up so much of Harry’s time and was hurt that Harry was ignoring him.

Harry thought about all of this on the seventh day of his search, leg bouncing restlessly beneath the table, eyes scanning over face after face of pedestrians and strangers. He didn’t even think he saw them as individuals anymore, just obstacles between him and his soulmate. After so long without results, he knew he had a decision to make. Keep waiting for fate to kick in again, or turn his attention back home and help to raise his only beloved godson.

Waiting out the rest of the afternoon, Harry settled on what was more important. Teddy’s parents had died as heroes, and Harry planned to teach that to him firsthand. Andromeda was already struggling with raising another child at her age, she depended on Harry.

With a shiver of unresolved tension, Harry finished off his fifth or sixth refill of coffee and left into the crisp evening.

* * *

Early Spring, 2000

The weather was warm by the time Harry made it back to the coffee shop. It was mid-Spring, no sign of slush or snow for weeks. There were now flowers and trees blooming in the new millennia for the first time with an excited flourish.

Harry still hadn’t told anyone about getting his mark, about meeting his soulmate, or about losing him shortly thereafter. He wore the guilt like a ball and chain, dragging it around behind him with every step he took. He knew he couldn’t burden his friends with his problems. He was the only one of them that didn’t work, and though he took care of Teddy nearly half of every week, toddler-age Teddy was not a menace and caused him no undue stress or chaos.

Once inside the coffee shop, Harry realized his normal spot was taken, so instead he sat on the opposite side of the shop, still in the window but with a different view than he was used to. It was somewhat refreshing, changing perspectives, Harry couldn’t complain.

As he settled in, he immediately noticed a bright red blur hovering in the distance in the street. Honing in on it immediately, Harry recognized the tall, dark-haired figure standing on the very same corner Harry had last seen him disappear, checking his watch impatiently and twitching in agitation. He was wearing that same bright red scarf and coat as he had in the winter, despite the much more tepid temperatures of spring.

For a moment, Harry thought he should jump up, chase his soulmate down, but a voice inside told him to stay, be patient and wait. With shaking hands, Harry kept his eyes glued on the man while he sipped his hot coffee. The man didn’t move, didn’t even pace, but stayed firmly on the corner.

The more minutes that passed, the more tension coiled in Harry’s stomach, muscles aching from staying seated when all he wanted to do was jump out of his seat and run. It felt like those moments high above the Quidditch stadium, clutching his broom as he searched the skies for the Snitch, coiled and ready to pounce but unmoving until he found his prize. Only now, he was the snitch waiting in the shadows for his soulmate to spot.

He wouldn’t run away, though. Of course he wouldn’t run away. But he did wait.

Ten minutes passed, it seemed as though the man’s tether snapped. From Harry’s perspective, he watched as his soulmate threw his hands up in frustration and stormed off from his corner, heading straight in the direction of the coffee shop. Harry froze, eyes going wide as he watched his soulmate stride on long legs, moving at top speed straight towards the spot Harry sat in the window. He might have been moving faster than all the people around him, but he seemed to be moving slower with each step he took that brought him nearly to Harry himself.

Of course, he was still staring and probably gaping as the man strode by the coffee shop. There was a moment just as the man drew level with Harry where their eyes met and Harry felt a sharp starburst from his forehead, exploding and turning his vision white.

He shook his head, trying to clear his vision and looked up at the window again, but the man was gone, nowhere in sight. Harry cursed himself quietly as he leaned closer to the window, trying to see down the perspective of the street more familiar to him, but the angle was terrible and there were too many people to pick out any tall, lingering forms.

Rubbing his forehead with ill-humor, Harry turned back to his coffee with spikes of disappointment lingering in his head and his heart. He started when he found his soulmate leaning forward on the table, staring down at Harry with wide eyes, less blood shot now, the green of his iris pale in the sunlight streaming in from the window.

“You,” the man stated, like it was a cold, scientific fact.

“M-me?” Harry stuttered, suddenly petrified to be here and now, facing down his fate once more. He felt ill-prepared, caught off guard, without defense.

“It is you, isn’t it?” the man muttered, talking more to himself than to Harry. He looked down at the small table Harry was seated at, noticing he was standing beside an empty chair. Without asking, he took a seat and folded his hands on top of the table, looking at Harry again with sharp, intelligent eyes. “Very well,” he concluded.

“Very well?” Harry repeated, confused and clearly not able to form his own ideas or words.

“We may as well get on with it,” the man continued, pulling off his scarf to reveal a long expanse of pale neck. The man ignored Harry’s staring as he shirked his coat off, draping both on the back of his chair with elegant grace and disdaining arrogance that only royalty and Malfoys seemed to possess. _ Perfect_.

The man stuck a hand out over the table, giving Harry an expectant look while interrupting his thoughts. “Sherlock Holmes,” he announced.

“Harry,” Harry managed, reaching out so quickly he nearly threw his coffee cup across the table and straight into the man’s—_Sherlock’s_—lap, though his reflexes saved him again and he managed to save the cup, though he neglected any shreds of dignity he’d been able to maintain. With a fierce blush, Harry managed to grasp his soulmate’s hand for the first time, nearly gasping at the shock that went through him from the contact. “Harry Potter.”

Eyes narrowing, the man squinted at Harry like he didn’t quite understand, but let go of Harry’s hand all the same. He held his hands in his lap beneath the table, just looking at Harry with a slightly tilted head. Harry noticed that his pupils were a little dilated and realized with some trepidation that Sherlock was more than likely high.

“Harry Potter,” Sherlock repeated slowly, breaking the brief silence that had settled between them. Harry tried to keep himself from reacting to the name, twinging at the memories of students and adults alike calling that name out in either worship or hatred. It was somewhat startling to hear the name said in such a neutral tone, but also refreshing.

“Um, yes,” Harry replied, nodding minutely. He studied his soulmate in the silence that embraced them again. Words were peeking out from Sherlock’s pale collarbone, and Harry only knew they were his words because he recognized the chicken-scratch of his own handwriting. For a moment, he continued to dawdle in confused awe, sitting in front of his soulmate, but then it finally, really hit him.

This was his soulmate, sitting right there in front of him. He’d found his soulmate and now they were sitting across a small table from each other, literally only an arm’s length away. Harry’s heart skipped a few beats at the thought, he could feel a flush creeping up his neck. He clenched his hands around his cup and took a steadying breath.

“I’m really glad,” Harry started saying, but exactly at the same time, Sherlock started speaking and didn’t stop for him.

“It may be difficult,” Sherlock said, voice and tone overpowering Harry’s words, “But I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.” He reached into his jacket pocket, digging around for a moment before pulling out a thin, ratty leather wallet. He slid out a folded piece of paper from inside the aged leather, set it on the table, then extracted a ball-point pen from his shirt pocket. He clicked the pen once with a precise click and unfolded the paper to reveal a blank check. He looked up at Harry, pen poised over his check ready to write, eyes half-lidded. “How much?”

Blinking, Harry glanced between Sherlock and the check. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”

Nodding as though he’d expected that response, Sherlock straightened and clicked his pen again, setting it over the check and folding his hands over it all. “It’s quite simple,” Sherlock stated with endless patience. “How much to make you go away?”

Harry’s thoughts came to a sudden stop. Everything in his mind just blanked out as he stared at his soulmate sitting only a few feet away from him. With a check. _To get rid of him_.

Sherlock waited calmly, and as Harry stared at him with only white noise between his ears, he felt a bubble of hysteria rising up his throat. He almost gathered the energy to stop it, but didn’t quite manage in time.

The laugh that buckled out of his throat was more of a giggle, high and fast. He could feel blood rush to his face as he set his mug down on the table, pressed his palms flat on the smooth, slightly tacky surface and rose to his feet. His chair scraped loudly against the floor, bringing more attention than he wanted to them, but at this point he decided he didn’t care.

With a step away from the table, Harry gave Sherlock a generous smile, stamping down his hysteria as words finally came to his mind. “You know what, Sherlock,” he stated, gathering the satchel he’d brought with him and throwing it over his shoulder. The man was giving Harry his full attention, a slight crease on his forehead the only indication that he thought something was wrong. “Keep your money. You don’t have to pay me to leave, I’ll just go.” He chuckled to himself, more subdued than his giggle of hysteria, throwing his hands out palm up to offer fate empty hands. “It’s not like I really expected anything to go my way for once.”

He turned on his heel and left the coffee shop at once, leaving the entire establishment in an awkward silence until the door jingled cheerfully as he opened it and walked outside. The weather was perfect, bright and warm. Birds chirped and a light breeze wafted over him, bringing with it the scents of city flowers and teriyaki from the Chinese restaurant next to the coffee shop.

Just before the door shut, he heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor suddenly, but he didn’t wait. He walked around the side of the coffee shop, to the alley, and right there, right where any of the muggles might catch him, he apparated home.

* * *

Late Summer, 2001

The week before Harry’s 21st birthday, Andromeda died in her sleep. It took only a day to get all the paperwork signed to give him full custody, Andromeda’s will read, and Teddy’s trust fund set up for him to receive upon his reaching legal wizarding adulthood at 17.

Her funeral was the day before Harry’s birthday, at the cusp of summer. Few people attended, as was her wishes. Hermione and Ron, their newborn daughter swaddled in Hermione’s arms, Draco accompanied by his ailing mother, and Neville, Luna and George, who came mostly for support. McGonagall oversaw the funeral rites and Andromeda was buried without much fanfare.

Harry kept Teddy close through the whole ceremony, and passed on the invitation to go to a pub or to the Burrow for drinks. Andromeda’s death had hit Teddy the hardest, only three years old and already learning the tragedy of loss. He was barely old enough to really understand that he was never going to see his grandmother again, but he was a sharp little tot.

Taking care of Teddy became Harry’s full-time job. Harry had never deluded himself he would stay a hermit who only sometimes took care of Teddy, but at the very least, he’d thought he’d have Andromeda’s moral support in the form of her still being alive. Her death had surprised everyone, and had left him feeling bereft and slightly panicked with a three-year-old Metamorphmagus and only child-rearing knowledge from memories of being at the Dursleys’.

Parenthood consumed Harry’s life. He was actually kind of grateful that his soulmate had scorned him, though who knew how helpful it might have actually been to have a second body around to chase after Teddy when he escaped from the bathtub with blue spiky hair and a literal fish-face. He was also finally grateful that he’d never told anyone about his soul mark in the first place, or about finding his soulmate, and especially not about actually meeting his soulmate. If he had told someone, it would have been likely that someone—Hermione back when she was in her third trimester of pregnancy, ballooned to ridiculous proportions, and a hormonal wreck prone to murderous rampages which she only regretted some of the time—would have hunted Sherlock down and tried to reason with him, or more likely tried to destroy him.

All the misery and pain Harry had suffered throughout his life, he’d decided enough was enough, to just let it go and enjoy what he did have. Besides, Sherlock had cut off any chance at a relationship right at the very start, before any sentimental attachments could be formed. Well, aside from the stigma that followed finding a soulmate in the first place.

Really, Harry was fine with burying the hatchet and only giving his concerned friends polite smiles when they asked if he’d received his mark yet. It embarrassed them because they thought his answer was no, that he hadn’t gotten a mark and likely wouldn’t. They were small lies, but Harry had lied so much in his life they brushed off him like water from a duck’s back. He would commiserate with them when they commiserated with him, though they might have been commiserating about two different things.

Misery loved company, as the saying went.

Harry was perfectly fine just being content.

* * *

Early Summer, 2011

John Watson was not an idiot. He wasn’t quite on Sherlock’s level of debilitating geniushood, but he was observant. He was also decently empathic in the non-psychic sense, but he knew that Sherlock was burdened with many things.

Not the least of which was certainly the words scrawled across his collarbone in a messy script. Sherlock sported his soul mark like it was nothing more than a tattoo he’d gotten in his youth, a useless past-time that meant nothing to him now.

But John knew. He knew Sherlock wasn’t completely unaffected. The very fact the mark existed in the first place meant something inside of Sherlock Holmes matched perfectly to something inside of someone else.

Heavens knew John’s soulmate had been the whirlwind made perfectly to match his, despite his chagrin about the man actually being a Dwarf, and swearing John to secrecy about his identity entirely. Thorin was loud to John’s quiet, short to John’s average, yin to his yang, et cetera, he _knew_ what it was like before and after having a soulmate, having a soul _mark,_ even.

Surely even Sherlock’s dour, sharp moods, drug problems, lack of empathy, and isolating habits all had winding threads of sheer, utter _loneliness_ throughout them. John was perceptive enough to know when he was another man’s buffer against the world, both that of the real one and that of Sherlock’s personal one.

So, when Mrs. Hudson announced they had a guest one dreary London afternoon when they had no other prior obligations, or cases, and a young boy walked in dripping wet wearing a strange uniform of a black robe, John had inklings—weird ones, kind of like a premonition, or spider-senses—that maybe this boy was somehow related to Sherlock’s past.

These thoughts were helped along when Sherlock glanced up from fiddling with his phone, spotted the boy sporting messy dark hair and shockingly green eyes, and leapt up off the sofa, sending his phone flying across the room in his surprise. He’d even nearly stumbled back onto the sofa in an attempt to put more distance between him and their guest.

“Good afternoon,” Sherlock said haltingly, and once the words had left his lips, he’d paled drastically, to the point where John was almost sure he was about to pass out, though he seemed rooted to the spot.

“What might we help you with,” John asked with an inquisitive frown, looking back and forth between the boy and Sherlock from where he was seated in his chair. Mrs. Hudson had scurried off to the kitchen to make up some tea, sending John a “look” as she went.

The boy studied the seated John, then Sherlock, eyes narrowing sharply on the taller man still standing. “Sherlock Holmes,” he stated, lips twisting in a snarl that suggested he’d tasted something terrible.

John looked at Sherlock, trying to gauge his reaction, but the sleuth had gained control of himself at the sound of his own name, straightening his back fearlessly and schooling his face of all but the cleverest of emotions, a gentle, perpetual smirk. “Yes?” he asked, his mouth curling the word innocently. John stood, whether to offer Sherlock his moral support or to stop an attack was yet to be seen.

Crossing his arms over his chest, the boy gave Sherlock another measuring look, clearly not impressed by what he’d found. “My father would have given you the very ground he stood on,” the boy coldly informed Sherlock, whose face twitched but remained professionally distant. “The entire world, if it had been his to give.”

“Your father?” Sherlock asked, his words carefully clear and concise, crystalline even, as though to say them was a deadly poison. Or an old wound.

“Harry James Potter,” the boy growled, the name a powerful spell on his tongue. Sherlock involuntarily stiffened, his nostrils flaring. A telltale sign that he was on the verge of panic or fear. “The man _you_ spurned, tried to pay off to get out of your life.” Righteously angry, the boy stalked straight towards Sherlock, fists curled tight at his sides. “You threw him away without even trying, without a care to how it would affect him to have lost another person he cared about. And here you are, living with another man!” He jabbed a sharp finger at John, who spluttered at the implications and couldn’t get words out to interrupt in time. “You’re despicable, and you disgust me.”

A sharp, clear bark of laughter jumped from Sherlock’s lips, fury pulling at the reigns of Sherlock’s mind. John stepped back, not sure if he should intervene or let this altercation play out. “You’ve come to condone my solicitous behavior, you the very proof he hasn’t exactly been chaste since our last parting,” he waved a hand before the boy, gesturing at the evidence of his very existence.

Growling a very canine growl, the boy ground his teeth, lips snarling back again to show teeth that seemed almost a little too sharp to be normal. “I’m not his actual son, you dolt. I’m his godson. Blimey, you’re slow.” With a harsh movement, he pulled out a stick from inside the strange robe he was wearing and pointed it threateningly at Sherlock.

Both adults were stunned by the sudden drawing of… a stick. It wasn’t until Mrs. Hudson was walking back into the room with a tray full of tea and biscuits that John remembered some strange conversations about Thorin’s secretive world and how _wizards_ used _wands_ to perform actual _spells_.

With a startled yelp, Mrs. Hudson threw the tray into the air and scrambled to put her back against the wall, surprising the boy into looking at her, giving John ample time to rush forward.

It wasn’t difficult to disarm the boy. He couldn’t have been much older than 13 or 14, and Mrs. Hudson had startled him into loosening his grip on the wand. John snatched it up from his hand and backed off quickly, holding the wood poised above his head and mostly out of the boy’s reach.

“Give it back,” the boy barked, starting to turn on John, but Sherlock stepped forward and planted himself between John and their rowdy guest. “Give it back!” he shouted, trying to duck past Sherlock and run at John, but Sherlock was faster, grabbing the boy around the waist and pushing him—fairly gently, all things considered—back towards the sofa.

There was a resounding _crack_ that echoed around the room, and suddenly a fifth figure was standing amongst them. The dramatic entrance halted the boy in his tracks, freezing him before he leapt at Sherlock with nails out. And if the man suddenly appearing out of nowhere wasn’t startling enough, the boy’s hair suddenly fluttered, turning from the dark, messy locks to a vibrant, curly red.

“Edward Remus Lupin,” the new stranger growled menacingly. He was a rather small, lithe man with the very same messy, dark hair and vibrantly green eyes that the boy had just had only a moment ago. He was also wearing the strange robes—though his did not have a regal crest on the chest—and was clutching a wand in his dominant hand. “Do you even know how much trouble you are in right now?”

“But, but Harry—,” ‘Edward Remus Lupin’ stuttered, shrinking down onto the couch and looking quite shaken in his boots. “I was just—,”

“’You were just’ what, Teddy? Because right now I’m seeing a whole load of secrecy and _privacy_ violations and not a single excuse to make them all disappear!” The man stamped a foot, causing the china in the cabinets and on the floor to rattle dangerously with the power behind it. “How do you think it felt to find my Pensieve memories tossed about my office, a load of Floo powder scattered in front of the fireplace and no sign of you anywhere?” He slashed his left hand in the air, glaring at his godson with such fear and sodden concern, John wasn’t fooled for a second by the angry stance or gestures. “Forget thinking you’d been kidnapped, I was actually worried you might have come right _here_!” His voice cracked on the last word, and he turned his head away, breath coming short as he tried to reign himself in again.

Glancing at Sherlock, John saw a statue in his place, stiff and unseeing as he still stood between John and the boy on the couch. John clutched the wand in his hand, though it was just a stick of wood to him. He looked anxiously between Sherlock, Teddy and Harry. Mrs. Hudson still leaned against the wall, pressing both hands to her mouth as she watched the scene play out in front of her.

“Harry, I was only trying to help,” Teddy claimed, his voice full of the pain of disappointing someone he cared about. He was small and vulnerable crouched on the couch, only just too old to cry in front of others. “Honest.”

Sighing, Harry ran a hand through his hair, still holding tight to his wand. He was studying the décor of the part of the room where no one was standing, clearly avoiding even looking in Sherlock’s direction. “I know, Teddy,” he replied softly. “You just, you scared me.”

Silence descended on them for a moment, and John gave Sherlock a sharp, commanding look. For some reason, this seemed to snap Sherlock out of his stupor, and he cleared his throat loudly. “Watson,” he announced like there wasn’t a problem in the world. “There appears to be intruders in our home.” He looked at John pointedly, blinking too much to really pass as all right. “You ought to do something about it. I’m going out.”

He immediately started for the door, but that was not fine by John. “Wait right there, Sherlock Holmes,” John snapped, pointing the boy’s wand ineffectively in Sherlock’s direction. “You come right back here this instant and face this situation like the responsible _adult_ that you are.” Over his time with Sherlock, John had discovered that this particular voice he’d perfected worked precisely to make Sherlock do as he said. Sometimes.

In this instance, it seemed to be working, because Sherlock stopped short of the door, facing his freedom but not reaching for it. He didn’t turn around until Teddy’s quiet, “That’s my wand,” broke the silence, spurring on Harry to reply, “Give it here. Teddy’s lost wand privileges outside of school for the rest of the summer.”

Feeling Harry’s authority on the matter, John passed the wand over, ignoring the whining coming from the boy on the couch.

Sherlock turned around slowly, face a completely blank mask. “Is this really happening, or have I cascaded back down into the slope of perpetual addiction and hallucination again? Because frankly, I’m having a difficult time discerning _reality_ from _fantasy._” He pursed his lips at his word choice, but finally looked from John to Harry, eyes lingering for a second too long before moving to Teddy and then Mrs. Hudson. All of them looked around at each other with varying degrees of guilt before Sherlock’s sharp, “Well?” pushed them all into action.

“I must have left my burner on downstairs,” Mrs. Hudson claimed, fleeing out the door before anyone could stop her.

At the same time, Teddy jumped off the couch to stand beside Harry, his hair matching the older man’s hair perfectly again and making them look like father and biological son. Harry busied himself with tucking Teddy’s wand up his sleeve, though he kept a firm grasp on his own.

“I believe,” Harry said without further prompting, still not looking directly at Sherlock, though his eyes seemed fixed on the door Mrs. Hudson had left through, “That you would all very much appreciate if I were to wipe your minds of this scenario.”

“I beg your pardon?” Sherlock asked, clearly affronted by the very suggestion.

“I have the ability,” Harry began, clutching his wand more firmly in hand and about to lift it up for display, but Teddy elbowed him, causing him to cut off with a grunt and stumble a step to the side.

“You’re soulmates!” Teddy exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re wasting your lives pretending you each don’t exist!”

John nodded, “I’m inclined to agree with the child,” he said, giving Sherlock a helpless shrug when the sleuth sent him a betrayed expression. “To be frank, Sherlock, you’ve needed someone in your life, and I’m clearly not enough, considering how often you mope around and seek substantial replacements for social interaction by _talking to dead people_.”

The frown on Sherlock’s face was distasteful at best. “I’ll have you know, my exploits into forensics—”

“Sherlock, your excuses are one of the things about you that have always been inadequate,” John snapped, his vision going red for a moment. To emphasize his point, he stamped his foot down sharply, the sound bursting through the room louder than expected, although not nearly as powerful as Harry’s from earlier, which had shaken the floor noticeably. “There is no reason that you shouldn’t be with your soulmate. None!”

Everyone was silent, though Teddy was pulling on Harry’s arm and giving him a “look” just as potent and loud as one of Mrs. Hudson’s.

“I can’t,” Sherlock said into the silence, his words loud and empty, his face stone as it looked firmly ahead at the wall. He was blocking out everything, his mental walls up higher than John had ever seen them before.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Teddy exploded in a flurry of angry pubescent child, his hair going through a rainbow of colors before shifting between black and red and blue like the rapidly shifting deimatic display of a cuttlefish trying to warn off a predator. He would have flung himself at Sherlock if Harry hadn’t shot out a hand and grabbed the back of Teddy’s robe in a white-knuckled grip.

“Teddy, I raised you better than this,” Harry said through clenched teeth, misplacing his anger on the boy even though it was clearly caused by Sherlock’s painful words.

“Sherlock, be _reasonable_ for one goddamn moment in your _life_!” John hissed venomously, feeling an ache deep inside himself at the pain he could read in Harry. If the scars visible on the other man—his forehead, his neck, the back of his hand—weren’t proof enough that he’d had a rough life, then the sloping shoulders, the creased wrinkles on his forehead, the premature silver strands at his temples betrayed it. “Soulmates are _soulmates_ for a reason.”

Unbidden, a picture of Thorin’s lascivious grin came to mind, pure joy etched in every line of his relaxed body sprawled out on John’s bed. John felt an ocean of turmoil rage through him at the mere _thought_ of pushing the irritating, rowdy dwarf away from him. And here was Sherlock, willingly pushing his soulmate away like an unwanted piece of furniture.

“It’s okay,” Harry said, his voice dull as he pulled Teddy back against him, clenching him to his side with an arm around his shoulders and down his chest. The boy struggled for a moment, but then looked up at Harry with wide eyes. Then Harry looked up straight at Sherlock, who startled into looking at him in turn. Their eyes met and John swore he saw a bright spark at the connection. John flinched, but when he looked at them, both of their eyes were glowing. On Sherlock’s chest, his soul mark also glowed like it was on fire, and a light was shining through the many layer Harry was wearing over his hip. “I’ve known for a long time that I was always destined for great things,” Harry stated, eyes not wavering from Sherlock, “Not happiness.”

A pressure built in the room then, and Harry clutched Teddy tighter. “Harry, no!” Teddy shouted, struggling to get free, but in a moment, they’d disappeared with a sharp _pop_ of displaced air, and Sherlock and John were alone again in their flat.

John looked at Sherlock with shock, the other man’s eyes and mark still glowing. The sleuth was pressed back against the wall, terror and pain traced all over his face for the first time John had seen them in a long time.

Suddenly, Sherlock dropped to the ground like his knees had buckled out from under him, leaving him heaving and pressing his fists against the ground like he was trying to move the very floor out from under him.

“Sherlock,” John began, not able to help how soft it came out in the face of Sherlock’s pain.

“I _can’t_,” Sherlock repeated vehemently, head shooting up to glare almost violently at John. “I can’t, he makes me _vulnerable_, he’s another weakness I _can’t_ have, John. I. Can’t.” He stood up suddenly, swaying a little as he turned toward the door and walked out, not even bothering to grab his coat before heading out into the rainy London afternoon.

John stared after him for too long. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the gold coin he’d received from the dwarf whose words were written on his shoulder blade. He studied the strange dwarvish language pressed into the coin, then flipped it three times, calling for Thorin’s company.

He didn’t want to be alone, not after that ridiculous display of idiocy and heart-wrenching pain.

o0o0o

It was strangely fitting that it was Teddy who spoiled everything after ten years. Harry truly had been content. But Teddy’s rampant hunt of Sherlock and consequent confrontation opened old wounds all over Harry’s mind and heart. To start with, seeing Sherlock again had been pure torture, like a smoker who hadn’t had a cigarette in years and was suddenly handed a fully lit one and had to decide whether or not to put it out or prey on it.

All of the emotions, the hope and pain and fear, the turmoil and sensitivity and potential, it all tore out of those reopened wounds, bleeding from Harry endlessly. He barely managed to set out Teddy’s punishment for invading Harry’s privacy, using the Floo without permission, and attempting to attack Sherlock Holmes in his own flat, grounding Teddy to his room with no wand for the rest of the summer, before he dragged himself to his own room.

With the door shut and noise-cancelling spells in place, Harry curled around his knees on the floor, trying to stop it all. Hours went by unnoticed as he shivered on the floor. He couldn’t even cry, he was so overwhelmed, just laid on the floor shaking. It was, he realized, him falling back to his time with the Dursleys, where any noise he made was punished, taught at a young age not to make a sound when he cried.

But he wasn’t crying because he was an adult and adults didn’t cry. The thought wasn’t quite enough to convince him, but he forced himself to sit with his back against the door. Even that small movement gave him the feeling he was more in control, helped him take more steadying breaths until he was breathing was a façade of calm. He managed to sew his wounds up again, with all his stuffing back in place, and leave his room with no more breakdowns. He bottled it all up like he normally did, sticking the old, dusty bottle back into the dark, dusty shelves of his mind apothecary, never to be looked at again.

This had been the reason he’d taken out the memories in the first place, so he wouldn’t have to struggle to get through life without his soulmate. He wanted to be content, and that meant getting rid of the things that caused him not to be. Not get rid of them, exactly, just distance himself from them.

For a long time, Teddy was the exact thing that helped him through living with the memories of his soulmate. When he realized it was starting to rot in him, Harry pulled out the memories with intentions to never visit them. Without them, he could be content once again.

And now, it was Teddy who had shattered that glass-thin happiness he’d maintained for nearly ten years. Not only shattered, but completely destroyed until there was only dust left because he’d gone and told his Aunt Mione and his second-cousin Draco that Harry had had a soulmate this entire time and had just been avoiding him.

In the past, it had been Hermione and Draco that bothered Harry the most about his soul mark. Hermione was concerned that Harry had never gotten a mark, the world was actually conspiring against him. Draco had frankly not believed Harry’s claims to not having a soul mark, jumped him one evening with a stunner that paralyzed him, stripped off his clothes in an oddly intimate-yet-terrifying strip-tease and found the mark the hard way.

Harry had blackmailed Draco into secrecy about it and still refused to admit to having met his soulmate, though of course it was in Malfoy’s nature to not believe a word Harry had said just to be contradictory. Draco was forced to swear on his magic, but the moment the secret was out that Harry had a soulmate, he beat Hermione to Harry’s house just so he could give Harry a scowl.

In the midst of Draco’s heavy silence, Hermione was screeching at Harry in anger and betrayal that Harry had never told her about his soulmate, that she had to learn about it from Teddy after Teddy had told all of her children and then his other friends. She frantically made tea for them as she continued rambling about how much he must have suffered over the years because he was too polite, too forgiving, too _weak_ to claim what should have been his from the start. She told him all about how he’d _earned_ _the right_ to have a soulmate after everything he’d been through, after everything they’d all lost.

“How could you do this, Harry?” she asked through tears, her perfectly-made tea trembling in her hands.

That was when Draco sneered at her. He’d gotten better after the war, more tolerant, if not exactly turning into an activist for non-purebloods. But Hermione’s rights-pushing, loud-mouthing, and general disruption of traditional politics had continued to irk Draco even as he descended into the depths of politics parallel to her rather than perpendicular.

He set the old Black tea cup and saucer down on the coffee table they were sitting near with a loud clink of porcelain, his hands steady and muscles coiled. He’d grown into his pureblood heritage with his mother’s guidance, though now he was much more a Black than a Malfoy. He was graceful and poised instead of stiff and arrogant. Rather than a replica of Lucius, Draco now eerily reminded Harry of the portrait of Walburga Black, just without the overbearing insanity.

“Are you really blaming him, Granger?” Draco hissed, like he was trying to keep his words from being heard by other’s in the room, though they were the only ones there. “He’s been taught his whole life that happiness comes at a price.”

“It’s Granger-Weasley,” Hermione snapped out of habit, her voice shrill and much-too-loud for a quiet, indoor setting with only two other people. “And you know what I mean.” She sent him a glare before turning to Harry again, who’d been slumped against his favorite upholstered chair, used to being spoken about like he wasn’t there with them. “Harry, soulmate bonds run deeper than any other bond that can exist,” she informed him like he hadn’t known that himself since he’d entered the wizarding world and finally had an actual answer for the mystical words that appeared on the human body sometimes. “You’re neglecting something that was _meant_ to be,” she insisted, putting her cup on the table and reaching for his hand, resting her warm fingers on his wrist in a reassuring gesture. “And if your happiness comes at a price, Harry, you’ve _met_ that price already!” Tears were gathering in her eyes again and she swiped at them harshly, growing angry with herself for the weakness she was showing.

Leaning over the table, Draco frowned at Harry. “I agree with her on this one, singular point, Potter,” he stated, earning an acknowledging nod from Hermione. “Out of everything you’ve already sacrificed, you really shouldn’t sacrifice your soulmate.”

“It’s not me,” Harry mumbled, sliding his wrist out from under Hermione’s, clasping his hands in front of his lap and looking towards the fireplace. “He’s the one that pushed me away.”

“Harry James Potter,” Hermione barked, using her mother-told-you-so voice as she put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You fight for your soulmate, no matter what. You are not a pawn to be tossed aside, you are the king, the most important piece on the board. You’re not weak, you’re not useless, and you certainly don’t deserve to be walked on, not after what you’ve done for everyone.” Her eyes were lit up with a fiery passion, the kind that had gotten Harry out of so much trouble in school and after it.

Draco smirked, leaning back into the couch with his cup and saucer in hand once more, delicately sipping at the flavorful tea. “I would listen to her, Potter. She’s scary when she gets like this. Like a Kneazle with a rat in sight.” He snickered when Hermione made a disapproving tut and swatted at him.

Groaning, Harry shook his head, not in denial but in resignation. He should have known the consequences of Teddy meddling would extend into his friends also meddling, particularly Hermione and Draco teaming up against him.

* * *

Late Summer, 2011

Harry asked for time. There were already 10 years between them, what was a few more weeks (or months)? Draco had griped, but Hermione had considered it a win that Harry had even consented at all.

The new school term would start in only a few more weeks. Since Teddy had entered school two years prior, Harry had been working at Hogwarts part-time as the Care of Magical Creatures professor, mostly so he could spy on Teddy and reminisce about the good times.

His 31st birthday was only days away from what Harry dubbed “The Incident.” It had occurred to Harry more than once since they’d come back that Teddy might have been acting in response to his approaching birthday, but it was not a topic that had come up between them mainly because Harry felt sick every time he even thought about talking to Teddy about it.

It seemed perfectly natural that, on the morning of his birthday, there was a knock on his door. He lived at Grimmauld Place which was under a new Fidelius Charm so he could have peace when he wanted it. Any guests come to call would go through the Floo.

A knock on the door was like an invitation for disaster. For that very reason, Harry stood stock still in the hallway on the ground floor, staring at the corner that led to the entrance hall and therefore the front door. He had an armful of clutter from the study, had been heading towards the stairs to put the clutter away, and now he was trapped. If he so much as passed the entrance hall now, he was sure the chaotic outside world would break inside his peaceful world and he would never be alone again.

Before he could make a decision about apparating away or not, a herd of elephants thundered down the stairs starting at the second floor, which was where Teddy’s room was. Harry froze, not even breathing, as he thought about what would happen _if_ Teddy opened the front door.

By the time he finally got around to actually doing something about stopping Teddy, even getting so far as tossing the box of tat aside and running to make it around the corner, Teddy was already opening the front door, with a cheerful, generic greeting, “Good morning!”

Harry stumbled to a stop in full view of one pleasantly dressed John Watson, while wearing only a stained t-shirt, boxers and socks, bed-hair sticking out worse than his normal messy style, dirt smudged on most of his exposed skin. Right behind Watson, standing a few steps below so he was actually the same height, was Sherlock Holmes. Looking right at him.

“Oh, you guys made it,” Teddy chirped, missing Harry’s complete and total mortification. “Please, come in.”

With an audible squeak that caught Teddy’s attention, not to mention how the other two were already looking at him with varying levels of concern, Harry scrambled back the way he’d come, making it around the corner before tripping over the stuff he’d dropped earlier and actually launching into the air.

The sound of his crash back to the ground was loud and echoed through the entire ground floor, probably the entire house. Harry didn’t reply when Teddy’s voice called out, “You okay?” Instead, Harry scrambled to his feet and bolted into the study, slamming the door shut loudly behind him. He could still hear Teddy, though, saying, “I don’t know why he’s so shy all of the sudden. He lived in a dorm room with other boys for six years. Watch your step.” The sliding doors of the formal dining room rattled open on the other side of the study. “Please wait here, if you wouldn’t mind.” Harry felt a confusing surge of pride at Teddy’s politeness, but then there was a knock on the study door Harry was leaning against and Harry’s breath stuttered in his chest. “Let me in,” Teddy stated, mimicking Hermione’s tone of voice when she was about to scold one of her children.

Reluctantly, Harry opened the door a crack, looking out to see only Teddy there, Teddy with two distinctive fox ears sticking up out of slightly curly dark hair, hair that very much looked like Sherlock’s, if Harry had to guess. He had a neutral expression on his face, but he didn’t really need to have an expression at all, what with the fox ears giving away how sly he felt or was attempting to seem.

Rage washed over Harry and he opened the door wide enough to yank Teddy in by his t-shirt. “Edward Remus Lupin,” he hissed, leaning down into Teddy’s face in his anger. “What have you done?”

With a scoff, Teddy broke out of Harry’s grip and took a few steps away, looking around the half-cleaned study, still cluttered with things for which Harry hadn’t yet found a place. “Happy birthday, Harry,” he said, turning on his heel to face Harry once more, smiling mischievously.

“How did they even _find_ this place?” Harry asked, hands pulling on his hair as he began pacing back and forth. “If the Fidelius is broken, we’re in danger,” Harry fretted, reaching for his wand before realizing he wasn’t wearing clothes and his wand was sitting on the desk in the corner.

He reached a hand out and summoned it, freezing when a thought occurred to him just before he was supposed to close his hand around his wand. He turned wide, slightly crazed eyes on Teddy to the sound of his wand clattering to the ground. Teddy looked innocently back up at Harry, batting pretty, long eyelashes at him and everything, his fox ears twitching just slightly to the sides, as though he were listening for something.

Harry honed his hearing, using his connection to the house to feel for other people. And yes, there it was, on the second floor was another person standing in his godson’s room. And based on the expensive feel of those shoes grinding into the old floors, Harry knew exactly who it was.

Losing control of himself in his rage, Harry’s magic exploded around him, sending visible waves of energy steaming off him. “Draco Lucius Malfoy!” Harry seethed, waving his hand so the door of the study flew open. He felt Draco tense, as though he’d heard Harry speaking from two floors away. It was possible, as a member of the Black family, he could feel the ominous turn of the air.

With the help of his magic, Harry made it up to the second floor faster than he should have, slamming open Teddy’s bedroom door in the same manner as he had for the study door. Draco looked alarmed when Harry entered, taking a step back at the sight of Harry’s no-doubt ridiculous appearance.

“How dare you violate the Fidelius Charm,” Harry growled.

“It’s not a violation,” Draco spoke calmly, his defenses up. “As the Secret Keeper, I’m the only one that _can’t_ violate it.”

“A violation of my _trust_, Draco. You told _muggles_ the location of my house!” Harry threw his hands up in exasperation. “What were you thinking?”

“First of all, it was Teddy’s idea,” Draco began.

“Oh, there you go!” Harry interrupted. “Throwing the blame around _like you always do!_”

“_Secondly_,” Draco continued, raising his voice to talk over Harry’s interruption and giving him a sharp look for doing so, “They’re not just muggles, they’re your soulmate and his,” he seemed to stumble for a moment, “His, I don’t know, _friend_. They came as a pair. I couldn’t convince Holmes to just come on his own.”

Harry wrinkled his nose, glaring whole-heartedly at Draco. “You brought my soulmate and his _boyfriend_ to my home,” he stated prickly.

“No, Watson is not his _boyfriend_,” Draco sniped, crossing his arms indignantly over his chest. “In fact, the only reason I found Holmes in the first place, apart from Teddy’s insistent nagging and barely useful help, was through Watson’s soulmate, Thorin Oakenshield.”

There was a tic in one of Harry’s brows as he continued to glare at Draco.

“You’re welcome,” Draco stated wryly, smirking now that Harry was speechless. “Maybe now that you’ll be supervised, some sense can be knocked into the both of you.”

“Supervised?” Harry repeated.

Teddy’s loud footsteps stomped up the stairs and he appeared in the doorway. “Are you done murdering my cousin yet? Sherlock found one of the portraits in the dining room and is trying to take it apart to see how it works?”

Dread flushed through Harry’s system as it finally occurred to him, “There are muggles in my house.”

“Yes,” Draco agreed, turning an unresisting Harry towards the door of Teddy’s room and ushering them down one set of stairs to the first floor and Harry’s master bedroom. “One of them is your soulmate. We should dress up nicely for him, help him realize just what he’s been missing out on.” Draco helped himself through Harry’s closet and Harry paced around his room, pulling on his hair frantically.

When the Malfoy shoved clothes into Harry’s hands, Harry put them on without looking, shivering when Draco cast a cleaning charm on him in the process. Fully dressed, Draco conjured a full-length mirror before Harry and let him look at himself for the first time while Draco teased Harry’s unruly main into something more fetching and artful.

Staring at the man in the mirror, Harry gawped. “What is this?” he asked, dragging his hands over the lacy blouse he’d just put on, tugging at the crotch of the skinny jeans hugging his bits a little too much. “These are not my clothes.”

“No, your wardrobe is severely lacking,” Draco commented. “I transfigured these from some old scraps that were hiding in there.”

“This is a girl’s shirt,” Harry muttered, pulling on the frilly sleeves to see if they detached, then tugging on the weird lapels around his throat.

“It is traditional wizarding clothing, you imbecile,” Draco grouched, more than likely wearing the exact same shirt beneath his robe. “Be grateful I’m allowing those terrible trousers, which, by the way, is only because they make your arse look great.”

Harry spun around and glared at Draco again. “Are you looking at my arse?”

Rolling his eyes, Draco fluffed Harry’s fringe one more time. “Oh, please, I hardly find you attractive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t _make_ you attractive. Now,” he turned a serious face to Harry, his eyes steely. “Go down there and get yourself a man.”

“Was that supposed to be advice? Because it was shit,” Harry stated petulantly.

“I believe in you, Potter,” Draco said melodically, grinning like the ferret that he was.

o0o0o

Teddy had served tea while Draco had been dressing Harry, but he was nowhere in sight by the time Draco had basically dragged Harry down the stairs and shoved him into the formal dining room. It had been a rather dreary room, and still mostly was, though after a thorough cleaning of both the magical and manual variety, and replacing the heavy curtains with something a bit lighter, the room was more indifferent than morose. There were old scroll-work designs lacing up the walls that Harry hadn’t figured out how to get rid of, they seemed to give the room a more interesting appeal in the daylight than they acted as an overbearing presence. The patterns on the wall matched the carvings along the legs of the heavy, large formal dining table and chairs.

Watson was sitting at the table, admiring the tea set while Sherlock studied the now-empty paintings with great intensity, walking back and forth between an upholstered chair beside a fire and an empty doorway that led somewhere exotic. When Harry walked (stumbled) into the room, he saw several heads peering around the doorway all at once, which seemed to absolutely fascinate Sherlock, completely engrossing him even though the heads quickly disappeared again.

Upon Harry entering, Watson stood up, nodding politely at Harry. “Harry Potter,” John stated with some satisfaction.

“Erm, yes,” Harry mumbled. “I apologize for,” he trailed off, using his hands to indicate the entire situation. “My friend and godson conspired against me.”

“Yes,” Sherlock commented, still not turning away from the empty portraits. _Coward_, Harry thought, but there was no venom behind it. Quite the opposite, there was a distinctly quivering fear behind it, and he was actually grateful that the man was facing away.

“I hear it’s your birthday,” Watson said before a silence could descend over the room. “Happy birthday, right Sherlock?”

The distracted hum that came from the man mortified Harry and he could feel his entire face heat up.

“Eh,” Watson faltered for a moment, turning to look back at what Sherlock was doing but dismissing him quickly. “How old are you turning, if you don’t mind the question,” Watson asked, clearly burning with curiosity to find out more about Sherlock’s soulmate, even if Sherlock himself wasn’t interested.

“Um, 31,” Harry answered, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. He’d never been good at interviews, and this one was no exception.

Watson’s reaction was an exaggerated raise of his eyebrows. “Wow, you look so young, I never would have guessed,” he said, giving Harry a polite smile. “You know, Sherlock is only 34, though he certainly doesn’t show it.”

“Oh,” Harry replied, hearing only a sharp exhale from the man who started wandering to the cabinet in the room, still not looking at Harry. Harry tracked his movement until it stopped, then looked back at Watson. “You know, I think I should get back to cleaning the house up. I’m having more guests later, and your visit caught me by surprise.” He turned quickly and fled to the door, trying to roll it open smoothly and make a fast exit, but the door stuck.

Blinking, Harry tried a little harder to open the pocket door, but the wood only rattled in its frame. He felt his lips curling in an angry, forced grin as he rattled the door harder in an irrational attempt to break the locking spell by sheer force. He let go of the door and felt around on his person for his wand, but remembered that the last he’d had it was in the study where he’d dropped it to the floor.

Shame and embarrassment wound through him as he leaned helplessly on the door, not wanting to turn back to face Watson and see Sherlock’s back again. He tried rattling it one more time before he turned sharply on his heel, stomped over to the table and sat himself down across from Watson.

“On second thought, Teddy and Draco can clean my house for once. Merlin knows they’re the ones that always mess it up the most,” he said casually, fixing himself a cup of tea from the platter and easing into the tradition quickly. “So, John Watson,” Harry began, sipping the tea with relish. “I hear you are soulmates with Thorin Oakenshield. That must be thrilling.”

Watson puffed up a little at the acknowledgement of his soulmate. They clearly had a strong bond, which was nice for him and all, what with the dripping tension between Harry and his soulmate currently standing only a few feet away and pretending he didn’t exist.

“Oh, yes, quite,” Watson said with a little chuckle. “He seems particularly amused by my iPod for some reason, something about a chorus of song for every occasion available at his fingertips.” He shook his head with a grin, rubbing the side of his face as he thought about his soulmate fondly. Harry nodded, picturing the dwarf king with a delicate iPod in his lumbering hands and a big, dopey grin on his face at the sight of Watson. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Watson suddenly exclaimed. “You must not know what an iPod is, even.”

“Oh, no, I know,” Harry said. “I grew up in the muggle world. I didn’t even know I was a wizard until I received my Hogwarts letter.”

“Hogwarts?” Watson asked, clearly intrigued, and so was Sherlock if the way he seemed to lean back a little was any indication.

“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” Harry said. “It’s the ‘it’ school for Wizarding England. If you’re not at Hogwarts then you’re home schooled.” He sipped from his tea as he let them absorb that information. “Teddy goes there now, started two years ago. We’re about to head back, here in a month or so.”

“We?” Sherlock asked, the word popping out of his mouth without his permission, if the way his back stiffened was any indication.

Harry studied that back for a moment, before replying, “I work there, Care of Magical Creatures professor.”

Watson’s eyes bulged a little. “Wow, amazing,” he muttered under his breath. “Dragons and unicorns and such?” he asked eagerly.

Laughing, Harry shook his head. “Oh, no. Dragons are far too dangerous for a school full of children. Plus, they’re endangered. Charlie, my friend’s brother, he works on a sanctuary, but dragons have not been kind to Hogwarts in the past. No, mostly smaller creatures. Not really unicorns anymore, though. They used to gather around the school, drawn to the innocence of children, but ever since the war, they’ve disappeared. We’re hoping they just fled deeper into the Forbidden Forest, because a whole blessing of unicorns would be disastrous on any market, let alone in the hands of serious Dark wizards.”

Watson blinked at him, clearly having lost the thread of the conversation, or found himself overwhelmed by the information. He turned back to a place he was more comfortable with, and asked, “So you were raised as a normal person, then?”

“Oh, yes,” Harry nodded, thinking of the Dursleys again, which was never usually a pleasant thought. “We call non-magical people muggles. My mother’s family were muggles, and she was muggle-born, meaning a witch born to muggles. Her sister, Petunia, was jealous, thought her younger sister was better liked because of her ability, and grew up with a bitter seed. When my parents were killed, my old headmaster thought it would be safest if I was removed from the wizarding community until I came of-age for school, so I grew up with Petunia and her husband and son, Vernon and Dudley. They didn’t like me much.” He drank more of his tea, realizing he was probably rambling.

He decided to change the subject again. “So, how did you meet a dwarven king?”

“Excuse me?” Watson asked, amusement glittering in his eyes.

“Thorin Oakenshield,” Harry said. “He’s the king of the dwarfs.”

The blank look Watson was giving him clued Harry in that Watson hadn’t known. The silence even had Sherlock turning around with an expression mixed with confusion and suspicion, but it seemed to clear when he saw the blank look on Watson’s face.

“Oh shit,” Harry muttered. “He hasn’t told you yet, has he?”

“No,” Watson said clearly. The man closed his eyes for a moment, then blinked and the blank expression was gone, turned back into what it had been before Harry had cracked open his world, like he reversed the conversation back to something he could comprehend. “We met in a park,” he said. “It was really rather boring, but sweet. He’s a very kind-hearted person.”

“Yes, right, okay,” Harry replied, still burning inside for what he’d just done.

“I’d ask after you, but Sherlock has already told me about his despicable behavior,” John continued.

“Hey,” Sherlock exclaimed sharply.

Watson didn’t flinch. “Come over here and _sit down_. Have a civil conversation with us, Sherlock, and stop hiding in a corner like a three-year-old.”

Sherlock stood still, looking about ready to ignore Watson, but then he glanced at Harry. Their eyes met and Harry felt a burst of unexpected, undesired warmth shoot through him. He could see Sherlock’s eyes glowing dimly, the mark as well beneath his white shirt, and knew his were doing the same. Sherlock slumped into the chair at the head of the table, accepting the cup of tea Watson prepared for him. He was soon distracted by how fresh and warm the tea was, after having sat so long on a table.

“I have to say, adjusting to knowledge on an entire secret society right here in London has been taxing, but very interesting all the same,” Watson commented.

“Yes, I can imagine how difficult it must be for fully developed minds to suddenly learn about magic,” Harry said.

“Why is it a secret, exactly?”

Harry was surprised by the question, mainly because it had come from Sherlock. “I think, and I’m not the authority on the matter, but I think it’s because muggles get jealous,” Harry answered. “There are other reasons, too, but what happens when only a select few people are isolated and given magic to manipulate? All those terrible witch hunts in early modern Europe and colonial North America are just a small fraction of the reactions given. It’s generally safer to keep our societies mostly separate.”

The answer seemed to distract Sherlock, who retreated into his own head after that.

“But you do tell some muggles,” Watson commented. “Thorin had me swear not to tell anyone, but I have been aware there was a society, though not to the extent of its reach.”

“Oh, yes, sometimes it’s necessary,” Harry said. “For muggle-borns, their immediate family must be notified so school supplies can be bought and admissions made.”

“And soulmates,” Watson stated bluntly, causing Harry to hunch a little in his seat.

“Yes, of course,” he muttered. He straightened a little in his chair again, brushing the comment aside. “Also, I believe part of the muggle government is made aware, though, again, not to the full extent of our society.”

“The government?” Sherlock repeated, drawn out from his thoughts again. He seemed shocked, and that quickly devolved into a quiet, simmering anger. “Mycroft,” he growled, suddenly leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, and bouncing his foot beneath the table in a full exhibition of irritation.

When Harry gave Watson a confused look, Watson rolled his eyes and waved a hand in a placating manner. “His brother, works for the government. They’ve got this rivalry thing going on, you get used to it.”

Against his better judgement, Harry felt refreshed by Watson’s implication Harry had a chance to “get used to it” at all.

o0o0o

John liked Harry. He was humble, yet powerful, sweet, with a slightly tangy after taste, and very easy on the eyes with visible scars that gave him a sense of danger and mystique. If it wasn’t for the fact that John was already perfectly content with his own soulmate, thank you very much, he would no doubt be all over this polite and slightly dorky young man sitting across from him.

Instead, John found that he was the buffer between two awkward, less-than-social soulmates that seemed idiotically reluctant to fall into the best relationship built for them by the world itself. They were so perfectly matched John could feel his blood pressure rise the longer he was stuck with them and their denial.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Harry was painfully polite and rather good at pleasant small talk, John would have tried to excuse himself to leave the two morons alone to work out their own problems. As it was, John had only come with Sherlock in the first place because otherwise Sherlock was nearly guaranteed to flake out before actually getting to this secret location in the first place.

The solid presence of Sherlock beside him wasn’t really reassuring John that Sherlock was trying, though. His displays at nonchalance had already missed the marker, and now that he was actually interested in his own soulmate, he was still hiding behind his walls as though trying to protect himself from the inevitable. John Watson was not very impressed.

A knock on the door interrupted them and they all looked over to see it slide open without resistance. The blond that had spoken with them the previous day, explaining only part of the situation and inviting them to Harry’s party, peeked his head into the room, looking between them all with grey eyes and an arrogantly smug expression. “No blood, a good sign,” he quipped with a grin. Before anyone could comment, he narrowed his eyes on John. “Mr. Watson, might we have a word for a minute?”

Without hesitating, John stood from his seat, abandoning his post beside Sherlock. “Of course,” he replied, rapidly moving out of Sherlock’s reach before the idiotic genius could grab him and physically keep him in place. When he glanced back, he saw the panic behind Sherlock’s eyes but didn’t wait.

By the time he made it out the door, the tension in the room was nearly physical, like a fog swirling through the space between the soulmates. John rolled his eyes as the door was shut and the wizard waved a wand easily before it to lock it back in place.

Draco turned to him with a conniving smile. “Merlin, but they take forever to get the picture.”

“Oh, believe me,” John said, shaking his head. “For a genius, Sherlock is quite slow on the uptake.”

“Potter was always pretty oblivious himself,” Draco agreed. “Well,” he amended after a moment, “He was always distracted by the war, and he did share headspace with a psychopathic murderer there for a while.”

That information stunned John for obvious reasons. “He what?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Draco quickly stated. “They fought, Potter survived, the Dark Lord perished because Potter’s love was too strong for him to resist.” He rolled up the sleeve of his robe, revealing what looked like a faded tattoo on his forearm. It was grotesque, a snake and a skull, but the details were a little blurry. “Saved me from a life of servitude, thank Merlin. I probably would have turned into the Dark Lord’s apprentice and then into the next great Dark Lord if not for little Harry’s big heart.” He gave John a pleasant smile, letting the sleeve drop. “Now, there’s a party here later and Teddy and I have determined that neither of us have experience in preparing for one. We were wondering if you might be able to give us some advice. Otherwise, I’ll have to resort to calling on Granger-Weasley, and once she finds out that Potter’s soulmate is here, she won’t be a functioning human being until she’s lectured at both of them for several hours about the beneficial properties of living with and embracing a soulmate. So, up for a bit of mischief and fun?”

John blinked at the overload of information, shook his head a little to clear it, and grinned up at the obnoxiously tall wizard. Another good thing about Harry was that he was shorter than John. “Absolutely,” he said enthusiastically. “And hopefully by the time we revisit our companions, they will have come to a passable agreement and fuck.”

The language startled a laugh from the blond wizard, and he slapped John on the back companionably. “I agree,” he said, leading John elsewhere in the large house.

o0o0o

Sherlock sat quietly on the other side of the table, eyes focused on the tea cup in front of him. Harry studied him without meaning to, biting his lip as he thought about what he might say. He didn’t know why he needed to say something at all, since he wasn’t the one trying to pay the other off to leave. But he couldn’t help it. He wanted to fix this, he just didn’t know how.

It left him feeling helpless and he hated it.

“I don’t believe John is coming back,” Sherlock broke into Harry’s thoughts, his voice quiet and neutral, like he was trying to block out everything else. Harry looked up from his hands to see that Sherlock was eyeing the door with trepidation.

“No, most likely not,” Harry said. “You’ll be happy to know Draco is unlikely to harm him at all.”

Sherlock’s pale green eyes shifted to Harry with a contemplative look. “Reassuring,” he stated wryly. “Though, at this point, I’m not sure that I would mind all that much.”

A grin stretched at Harry’s lips before he realized it was happening, but he was more surprised when Sherlock returned the expression. Warmth spread through Harry’s entire body at the sight, thawing something inside he hadn’t realized was frozen.

The mark tingled on his hip and he knew his eyes were glowing because he could see Sherlock’s glowing, as well. Harry’s eyes landed on the glowing mark on Sherlock’s collarbone, bright but flickering beneath the material of his buttoned shirt. Sherlock looked down at his chest, following Harry’s attention, then put a hand over the glowing mark, a strange look coming over his face. It was almost like turmoil and pain, but that seemed wrong while he was contemplating something so pure.

He looked back up at Harry with those eyes, trying to drown Harry in their depths. “I must apologize for my,” he paused and Harry detected the slightest hint of a flush to Sherlock’s cheeks, “My _behavior_ in the café where we met.”

Surprised, Harry leaned forward, closing the distance a little between them. He also tasted something bitter on his tongue, felt anger curling in the back of his mouth. “Your behavior?” he whispered.

Sherlock looked into his eyes, measuring him. “I was afraid, of many things.” Harry could tell he was being honest, or at least lying undetectably. “I didn’t want to be vulnerable, and what makes someone more vulnerable than their soulmate?” He clasped his hands in front of him, looking down at them for a moment before looking back up at Harry. “I didn’t have a mark until just a few months before we met. I thought I wouldn’t get one. When this showed up,” he brushed his fingers over his mark before clasping his fingers together again, “I was both relieved and devastated. I thought I could wish it away, ignore it and continue on as I was.” He closed his eyes, a bitter smile on his lips. “I was a fool.”

“You were a fool, I’ll give you that,” Harry agreed readily.

Sherlock’s small smile tilted a little with wry amusement. He looked at Harry again, eyes roaming over Harry’s face. “I know how awful it was for you,” he said quietly. “I could tell back then how much it hurt you, but I wasn’t really in my right mind. And now, I can see the toll it’s taken on you.”

Harry held up his hand. “Spare me the details, please.”

“Okay. But please,” Sherlock clenched his fingers unconsciously, looking intently at Harry. “Tell me, did I destroy everything? Any chance that we had for any kind of future?”

The questions caught Harry off-guard, his breath hitched in the back of his throat.

“Tell me what I can do,” Sherlock continued, “To make it up to you, please.

“Are you saying,” Harry started, pausing to swallow before pressing on with some difficulty, “You want to try again?”

Sherlock unlaced his fingers, showing his palms to Harry pleadingly. “I am.”

Harry looked at the pale palms, a nearly irresistible desire to touch them with his own rising up in him and making his own palms itch. He lifted his eyes back to Sherlock’s, seeing the impatient turmoil that contradicted his patient, outward calm façade.

“You don’t deserve a second chance,” Harry whispered, seeing the horror dawn behind those pale eyes. But then Harry reached out with his right hand and clasped Sherlock’s before he could retract his hands. He stared at the place where their hands were linked, feeling little shocks going up and down his spine at the contact. “But you’re my soulmate,” he continued, still whispering. “And I’m a self-sacrificing idiot who doesn’t know when to quit.” He grinned weakly, feeling the pressure of emotion and tears pressing on his eyes but he still looked at Sherlock’s gaze once more.

Shocked, Sherlock sat still on the other side of the table, hand limp and unresponsive beneath Harry’s, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it had been Sherlock begging only moments ago, Harry would have snatched his hand back and fled the room in rejection.

The feeling of Sherlock’s larger, warmer hand curling around Harry’s was too much of a relief for Harry to handle at such a distance. He stood up and walked around the corner of the table, not letting Sherlock’s hand go until he was standing in front of the chair, Sherlock twisted around to face him with shock still on his face.

It was there, on his 31st birthday locked in his own dining room, Harry reached forward to frame his soulmate’s face, then leaned down and pressed his lips against Sherlock’s.

Light exploded all around them in such a sudden, blinding flash, they both jerked apart with a flinch, Harry stumbling back to crash into the wall.

“Dear god, what was _that_?” Sherlock gasped, rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to convince them not to lose function.

“I have no idea, but _Merlin_ that was bloody bright,” Harry replied, blinking the spots away as best he could.

Silence filled the room for several moments, and when they could see again, the two soulmates looked at each other. Slowly, smiles pulled at each of their lips, small bubbles of laughter rising through their throats until they were both laughing merrily along with each other, a symphony of preposterous delight and hysterical relief.

Harry stepped back to Sherlock’s chair, rubbing the back of his head and messing up all of Draco’s hard-but-pointless work on his hair. He reached out confidently at first, then hesitated before touching Sherlock’s face. Sherlock encouraged the movement by leaning into the touch, placing his own hand over Harry’s.

They looked at each other for a long time, Harry standing to the side of Sherlock’s chair, Sherlock rubbing his thumb against the back of Harry’s hand. This time, when they kissed, they were both expecting the burst of light, but instead of being startled by it, it spurred them on, Sherlock’s other hand coming up to run through Harry’s hair, Harry bracing himself on Sherlock’s broad, thin shoulder, their lips and teeth clashing as the kiss intensified.

When they broke apart, they were both panting and the light had faded a while ago. Sherlock’s face was tilted up to Harry’s, desperate for more contact but also satisfied by the kiss for the moment.

“You know,” Harry murmured, his lips tingling and numb with the same feelings Sherlock was no doubt having, “There’s that saying about delayed gratification.”

Sherlock hummed for him to continue, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead against Harry’s.

“If you wait, the satisfaction is greater, or something.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of it,” Sherlock replied, a smile pulling his lips up. “What are you saying, exactly?”

“You’re the smart one,” Harry replied slyly. “You figure it out.” He broke out of Sherlock’s hold, turning on his heel and running to the door of the room. It flew open, now that Harry was master of his own house again, and he ran through the hall with echoing laughter, alerting the other house guests that the two of them had finally gotten their act together.

As Sherlock’s footsteps thundered upstairs after Harry, the wizard marveled at how much brighter the world seemed, how much lighter his shoulders, as though Sherlock had taken part of the weight baring down on him.

Now that Harry was tied down, it felt like he could finally be free.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Thanks to my friends for all the support! (^v^)


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